ZOOLOGY. 



Upon the return of the English expedition from the 

 Mediterranean, the wife of an English Soldier having 

 brought a live Chamaeleon from Alexandria, supported 

 it for several months, by keeping it in a box lined with 

 cotton: it shewed considerable affection for its keeper, 

 and lived chiefly upon bread soaked in milk and mixed 

 with sugar. It was found to undergo all the relative 

 changes of colour, which travellers have mentioned, and 

 which have been so often disbelieved or doubted. 



It is no less a remarkable circumstance that the eye 

 of the Chameleon is capable of being extended from the 

 head like that of the Snail, by which a greater extension 

 of Vision is imparted to the creature when in pursuit of 

 its prey, as it can in all such cases give to its eyes a 

 different inclination, the pupil being placed at the end 

 of a muscular pivot, and moving circularly round in 

 all directions. Its general form and appearance have 

 not been unsuitably characterized by a modern Poet in 

 an excellent Eable upon Credulity and Prejudice. 



A Lizard's body, lean and long, 

 A Fish's head, a Serpent's tongue ; 

 Its claw with triple toes disjoin'd, 

 And what a length of tail behind! 



From the small quantity of food which the Chameleon 

 is found to consume it as been idly conjectured by some per- 

 sons, to live entirely upon air, forming therein an exception 

 to all the other animated tribes of nature. Upon a minute 

 dissection however of the stomach it has been discovered 

 that flies and the larvae of small insects, are its general 

 and natural food, and that it is formed with peculiar 

 powers from nature, for undergoing a very long cob* 

 tinuance of abstinence. 



